No, we aren't both correct. The discussion was not about whether he kept or removed the gun from his pocket. It's about whether he almost shot the wrong person. By his own account, he did. For KK to denounce the first person testimony as "false" was simply ill-informed.

No, we aren't both correct. The discussion was not about whether he kept or removed the gun from his pocket. It's about whether he almost shot the wrong person. By his own account, he did. For KK to denounce the first person testimony as "false" was simply ill-informed.

JW, that's kind of silly though. I realize your point, but it's impossible to "almost shoot" the wrong person when he never removed the pistol from his vest jacket pocket, well, at least by any stretch of the imagination. It's next to impossible to even shoot a pistol sitting in a vest holder inside of a jacket pocket in the first place. That's the important difference, and I know you realize this. The Ruger has a pretty heavy trigger pull (one of those DA/SA decockers that was mentioned before) That's like saying he "almost shot" someone because he had a gun locked up back in the trunk of his car, and had to decide to run back and get it or not.

His personal account was looking back over about his decision to keep the pistol in the pocket or remove it. He choose not to remove it even though it was there. Basically, he reached in, clicked off the safety, and then took his hand back out. The summary given here in the forum, and forgive me because I could probably scroll back but I'm not, was that he was "holding the gun in his hand with the safety off when he almost shot the wrong guy.." something along those lines. The impressions that they give are completely different. The hero side will say that Zamudio's concealed weapon helped save the day. Eh...The gun really didn't come into play. But the anti-crowd want to give the impression that he was running around waving a gun. Eh....again, the gun didn't come into play. The basic reality is that it was just a guy with a gun in his pocket who helped subdue a criminal.

It's next to impossible to even shoot a pistol sitting in a vest holder inside of a jacket pocket in the first place. That's the important difference, and I know you realize this.

No it isn't. A vest holder is not a meaningful barrier to shooting or not shooting. Had he chose to, it would have required no real effort for Zamudio to unholster and discharge his firearm. What he expressed in subsequent interviews is how close he came to actually making this decision. That is what Rogue1.5 then highlighted. It perfectly matches the two of larger over-riding arguments advanced most recently by those who seem to favor more gun control: 1) that situations are more complex than the scenarios most people dream up in their head, making it difficult to act "correctly" and 2) having a weapon on hand may inadvertently contribute to harm rather than prevent it. Zamudio's first hand experience validates both these fears. He does not endorse any sort of clear or obvious discernment, but instead attributed the way he dodged compounding the disaster to sheer luck. Seeing as luck is unreliable, this instead forces us to wrestle with the very risks Rogue and tom were trying to highlight when it comes to guns policy.

By contrast, KK made a non-sensical citation where he seems to have conceded that the presence of a firearm had nothing to do with the action he has lauded. He then proceeded to make patently incorrect speculation about the state of the fellow's mind in a poorly researched attempt to rebut those he disagreed with. In summary, no part of the account really validated his argument, it did offer validation to those he disagreed with, and he damaged his own credibility trying to deal with the proceeding to facts. He has since fallen silent. Maybe you should stop trying to twist into a pretzel to find ways he might have been correct if we were talking about something entirely different, and follow his lead here.

It's next to impossible to even shoot a pistol sitting in a vest holder inside of a jacket pocket in the first place. That's the important difference, and I know you realize this.

No it isn't. A vest holder is not a meaningful barrier to shooting or not shooting. Had he chose to, it would have required no real effort for Zamudio to unholster and discharge his firearm. What he expressed in subsequent interviews is how close he came to actually making this decision. That is what Rogue1.5 then highlighted. It perfectly matches the two of larger over-riding arguments advanced most recently by those who seem to favor more gun control: 1) that situations are more complex than the scenarios most people dream up in their head, making it difficult to act "correctly" and 2) having a weapon on hand may inadvertently contribute to harm rather than prevent it. Zamudio's first hand experience validates both these fears. He does not endorse any sort of clear or obvious discernment, but instead attributed the way he dodged compounding the disaster to sheer luck. Seeing as luck is unreliable, this instead forces us to wrestle with the very risks Rogue and tom were trying to highlight when it comes to guns policy. By contrast, KK made a non-sensical citation where he seems to have conceded that the presence of a firearm had nothing to do with the action he has lauded. He then proceeded to make patently incorrect speculation about the state of the fellow's mind in a poorly researched attempt to rebut those he disagreed with. In summary, no part of the account really validated his argument, it did offer validation to those he disagreed with, and he damaged his own credibility trying to deal with the proceeding to facts. He has since fallen silent. Maybe you should stop trying to twist into a pretzel to find ways he might have been correct if we were talking about something entirely different, and follow his lead here.

JW, I don't want to get into too much detail, but his handgun was secured, butt forward, inside of a vest pocket inside of his jacket. Think about it. That sounds like a pretty meaningful barrier to shooting or not shooting to me. I don't know if you're subscribing to some sort of Hollywood-quick draw/Matrix perception or something, and I certainly don't want to assume anything. But it's all besides the point, because the gun wasn't a factor in this example. The mere presence of a pistol in a pocket somewhere does not equate to anything beyond that.

Again, I accept your points, but not to the extent that you're making them, as they would have come into play once Zamudio made the decision to get involved-gun or no gun. Your or Rogue's original point (at least described above in the forum) was that " the gun was in his hand with the safety off while he almost shot the wrong guy...." That's not what happened at all. You're unfairly focusing on the gun above all else. I realize you don't like contrary examples in the forum, but the point is, of all the factors involved, a pistol sitting down in Zamudio's pocket is the least important one. That's all I'm saying.

Yes, I did, for about the last 3 hours. Why? Because my boss let me leave work an hour early, so I went home and spent time with my family. I work an early schedule to avoid the traffic in the DC area.

My point, which you have been so quick to miss, is that just because a person is carrying a gun doesn't mean that they will use it in a defensive situation. The mere fact that someone is armed does not require that they use the firearm. As I have repeatedly said, it is simply another option that is available to them at that time.

While Zamudio had his hand on his gun, by his own account it never left his holster. That's a long way from "almost shooting someone". Before there's even a chance of shooting someone, you have to actually point the gun in their direction. Zamudio never did that. That shows that he exercised good judgement in those circumstances. Similarly, even though Nick Meli drew his gun during the Clackamas shooting, he also did not have to discharge it.

I would argue that it's more than luck. It shows responsibility. If it were luck, we would expect to see examples on the other side of the issue, where a legally armed citizen does shoot bystanders.

In fact, here's a little challenge for you. Can you provide a couple (2-3) examples of a legally armed citizen shooting the wrong person in a defensive shooting in public? Statistically speaking, legally armed citizens are less likely to hit bystanders than the police are. (Consider the Empire State shooting in August, where the gunman was killed and 9 bystanders were injured - all by the police.)

EDIT: And with that, I'm going to go back and play with my son. Have a good evening.

I can see what you're saying. A gun that doesn't even leave its holster isn't the same as a gun being waved about. But on the other hand, a gun with your hand on it and the safety clicked off is a gun that someone is preparing to use and, by his own account, had he actually used it, he might have shot the wrong guy. He made a good call, there's no doubt about that. I don't know that everyone would make that call.

Also, the argument that the police aren't able to handle weapons, despite extensive, in-depth training, without shooting innocent people is not a very good argument for handing out guns to civilians with no training. I mean, I think you're right about the police; I mean, you can't trust the police to handle their weapons properly. I'm not sure why that means I should trust someone with less training & less skill to do so.

A citizen with decent motivation can achieve a much higher degree of competency than a police officer, TBH. Considerably more flexibility in his or her schedule-most cops go to the range about twice a year for qualification purposes. A civilian can go daily if they desire to do so. Not saying all civilians>cops, but I've known a fair number who are way more competent with personal firearms than the examples cops give us.

Edit: Not to say cops aren't skilled, but they do typically live on shoestring budgets and have responsibilities that (for obvious reasons) take precedence over honing weapons skills. About the only cops that get to train regularly are large PD SWAT teams that do nothing else. A pretty large number of PDs offer analogous training to what they give their officers to local citizens; the difference is that citizens have time to practice it alot if they so desire.

Anyway. I'm honestly kinda surprised the details of the new AWB don't seem to be the topic of conversation now. In a nutshell, I think it's too restrictive to have a snowball's chance in hell of passing the House in its current form, if at all in our current entrenched House.

well that's why i'm saying we can't just ban all frowns. because sometimes an athlete such as logan tom might frown due to concentration on the volleyball court and i don't think that she should be penalized for that.